"Henry, look at you. Why do you do this, you could be so many things with your size. You could probably even compete with those other people your size in that arena.” implored Damon Cole, one of the parents of the local elementary school and an acquaintance of the dedicated crossing guard.

Henry Stubbins stepped in front of a moving car and held up his sign so that a herd of students could make their way across the street on their way to school.

“Protecting these children matters more to me than anything in this world. That’s why I do it.” he shouted back to the parent, who did not cross with his three children, hoping to extract a deeper answer.

“But anyone could do this job, why you?!”

Henry chuckled and waved Damon through, putting a hand up to apologize to the frustrated driver stuck waiting. The family shuffled through and traffic resumed. Henry contemplated the question, knowing his answer but curious why Damon pressed for one. It had been many years since his daughter Bianca vanished from a crosswalk. He vowed to do anything to make crosswalks safer.

Another group of children began to cross. Henry held his sign and held a stern face at the stalled lanes. Behind the stopped cars, something moved quickly towards him. The force of its movement bumped vehicles aside and whizzed by him and the kids, passing through his domain.

“STOP!” Henry turned his head and shouted. The speedster looked back in the blur of motion, but continued moving, quickly out of sight.

The students were startled, but Henry knew his duty. This was not just unlawful. It was dangerous. It was unjust. He would bring a stop to they who failed to obey.

Once all crosswalks were closed for the day, Henry retired to his apartment. It was not difficult to track the speedster. Apparently, it had been tracked across the country, and now was mapped to be heading towards the coast.

Even at his size, Stubbins knew he would not be able to bring such a powerful being to a complete stop. He would need help.

Luckily, Henry once knew a woman named Alba when he was trying to locate Bianca who might be willing to help. A quick drive to her home and a knock on the door would reunite the two.

“Alba Abernathy the Third, it’s been too long.” Henry smiled charmingly as he hugged the ancient woman.

“Yes, yes. Come in. Let’s begin.” she stated eerily, somehow already aware of the situation.

“Out!”

“OUT!”

“OUT OUT OUT!” shrieked the face protruding from the center of Alba’s back, pressed against the cloth of her shirt. 

“Ignore her, she must not remember you.” Alba apologized.

Henry nodded and entered the dark living room, which was encircled with a red substance, presumably blood. Within the ring was a stop sign and a stop light.

“This ritual will stop whomever you seek to stop. Keep them in mind as I begin. Please… enter the circle.”

Henry recalled a failure in the locating of Bianca many years prior. “Are you sure this will-”

“You know this is different. This will work.” Alba assured him.

“Leave! LEAVE!” screamed Alba’s other face. Alba shook her head and lifted a book, beginning to chant the strange words on the page.

The room quickly began to fade into darkness. Henry could see only himself, the items in the circle with him, and the speedster he sought to bring to justice. His vision, too, began to fade and he felt the worst pain he’d ever felt before losing consciousness.

The crossing guard rose from the ground, but was no longer in Alba’s home. It seemed her ritual was another failure. There was no speedster, and Henry Stubbins found himself at his usual crosswalk. All the children around him, the cars, the birds, the air itself….stopped.

Something felt different. As strange as the stopped world was, stranger still was his body. Henry’s chest was replaced with the symbol he needed the power of, a stop sign. On his arms were red, green and yellow lights. It was obvious the ritual did work, just not as intended. Henry Stubbins was no more. To secure the safety of all crosswalks, he became HardStop.

HardStop focused all his energy to the light on his arm, trying to switch it from red to green. The light would not switch, and nothing but himself would move. The reality of a frozen world set in, and the new hero realized that the speedster would have to wait.

 

After parting ways with Daddy Chill, HardStop flew around the city, trying to catch any trace of the Dupe they had been chasing together. It moved too far out of sight for his effective stopping radius and when they were interrupted by EmBark, they lost it altogether. HardStop cataloged the image of it; when it passed by, it appeared to be a disco cube, he recalled, not knowing exactly what he meant by it. He returned to civilian life in the morning, wearing a long sleeve, tight fitting shirt that barely hid his stoplights and stop sign.

Kids in Henry’s crosswalk were talking about some appearance that Wumpus had on TV. She certainly had a way of holding the spotlight. Henry listened in on what they were saying out of curiosity.

“I’d wanna be Wumpus over any of the other heroes!!”

“Even HardStop???”

“HardStop’s ooooold. I don’t even think Wumpus ages!”

“WHOAAAAAA.” all the children were enamored with the purple monster.

Henry was a proud man, and hearing them pick a hero he knew personally as a legit psycho over him didn’t hurt his feelings. Calling him old did. It wasn’t because it was true - it wasn’t. HardStop’s powers prevented his cells from aging. He would forever be a 39 year old man, celebrating a lonely 40th birthday year after year. Why it hurt was that he knew himself to be a failure. Despite becoming a world-famous hero, saving many lives and even the world multiple times, HardStop’s original mission hadn’t progressed at all.

Henry felt deep in his core that the speedster that once threatened innocent walk-crossers still roamed the Earth, putting in danger anyone who wished to cross a walk. He thought of his daughter, Bianca, as well and how he wanted to bring in his mysterious nemesis in her honor. As the crossing guard shift ended, Henry found a replacement for himself and dedicated himself to the hunt.

At the library, Henry had five computers running searches for reports of recent speedsters. A librarian walked over after people complained all the computers were taken.

“You know, you can do that quicker on your phone.” the sarcastic young man said, his nametag read ‘Trevor’.

“You think it would be faster for me to call people than it would be to use your computers?” Henry raised an eyebrow.

The young man sighed. “You don’t have to call anyone. Everything you’re doing on the computer can be done on your phone.”

“Show me.”

Trevor took the phone and copied Henry’s search into the search engine. “Look.”

Henry grinned as he read through a slew of reports just north of Big City. “How would you like to be a sidekick, Trevor?”

“I work here at the library.”

“Good to know. Be ready when I call on you.” Henry hurried out of the building and stopped time outside so he could change into HardStop. Flying over the city, he heard screeching tires directly below.

HardStop paused all motion at the noisy intersection, which fell silent in his time halt. He hurried to relocate any of the cars that were near smashing into each other, lifting them with ease and dropping them gently. One of the drivers had run a red light and was visibly inebriated, so HardStop slapped him a couple times and left him on the hood of his car with his arms and legs hogtied with his own shirt to await the police. He allowed time to flow again and watched angry people scold the drunkard.

Above the city once again, HardStop heard sirens in the direction he headed. He descended near the procession of first responders and saw ahead of them a streak of light in the street. It moved back and forth in a small area. A cop car moved too close and was crashed into by the insane motion. The streak was unaffected, but the car was tossed with great force. HardStop knew it to be his speedster. He took a moment to freeze the cop car and bring it to the ground safely.

HardStop looked to his nemesis who was having some sort of crisis, digging itself into the ground as it ran back and forth in the middle of the street. He realized everything around him was frozen, except the speedster. It didn’t slow at all. HardStop took off his glasses and stared in awe as he realized he gained all this power just to still be powerless. He began to panic, feeling as though all the good he did was pointless if he couldn’t stop his only nemesis. His frustration and anger brightened the light on his arm. It glowed a red he’d never seen before, sharper as well.

The world around HardStop gained a certain pixelated quality, as if he’d not just frozen the matter around him, but the inner workings of reality as well. He looked at his hands and they had the same quality as well. To his chagrin, the speedster still moved. HardStop was relieved that it was not at full speed, but it was still quick. He saw the person in the streak of light. It was a woman in a mask whose face bore distress. As the light on his arm faded, as if unable to maintain such a hold, the speedster mouthed something to HardStop, looking at him out of the corner of her eye.

“HELP.”

Time resumed normally and HardStop stayed flying there, confused. The military surrounding the speedster deployed a mobile facility around it, which dug into the ground and expanded a floor below. It worked perfectly. Within a metal cage, the speedster bounced from wall to wall and was hauled away by helicopter. HardStop took a moment and then left the scene, now unsure of his only mission.

The clock struck midnight when HardStop finally returned to the library. He had research to do. Who was the speedster? Why did she need help? How could he help if he wanted to? In the library parking lot, hidden between two cars, Trevor emerged.

“You waited here?” HardStop asked.

“You told me to be ready.”

“That’s very odd… but it’s good that you’re here. We have work to do.” HardStop raised an eyebrow. “Wait, how did you know it was me?”

“You wore those exact glasses earlier… You’re like 7 feet tall… You have stop lights on your arm and a stop sign torso… What do you mean?”

“Perceptive. That’s a good sign.” HardStop handed him his phone to get to work. “Maybe you’ll be a good fit.”